Top 10 Fuel-Efficient Luxury SUVs

Luxury and efficiency hand in hand, sort of.

Traditionally, luxury SUVs and fuel economy have gone together about as well as Republicans and gay marriage. But recently, buyers of these behemoths have begun adding smaller carbon footprints, more miles per gallon, and fewer stops at the gas station to their already lengthy list of demands. The vehicles here are luxurious, but they are affordable enough to land in homes where practicality is still a concern.

And so luxury automakers—who also have seen the writing on the wall on Capitol Hill, which suggests that they’d better get their fuel economies up or risk forfeiting a chunk of their high profit margins as fines—have responded with measures to increase fuel efficiency in the form of high-tech injection systems, zillion-speed transmissions, diesel engines, and in some cases, all those things.

We set out to find which among the lux-u-vees had the best fuel economy of the bunch as tested by the EPA (see www.fueleconomy.gov) along its redefined guidelines, said to reflect real-world driving conditions better than its previous method. We defined “luxury SUV” the same way we do for our annual 5Best Trucks competition: SUVs with a base price over $35,000 and at least one model with a base price over $45,000. For example, the Cadillac SRX, which has a base-price range from $37,790 for a rear-wheel-drive V-6 model to $46,665 when equipped with all-wheel drive and a V-8, is eligible. The Lexus RX line, which starts at $38,165 for a front-wheel-drive V-6 and rises to $43,345 for the all-wheel-drive RX400h hybrid, is not.

So if you’re as curious as we were, or if you happen to be in the market for a vehicle that spoils you with creature comforts without forcing you to fill up every two days, read on.